What's In Your Water

Broad Question
Is bottled water better than tap water?

Specific Question

Is bottled water really the most preferred source of drinking water?

Hypothesis

It is hypothesised that there will be no clear favorite and the results will be inconclusive. This will mean that humans cannot tell the difference between water sources and therefore should not be spending so much money on bottled water if they like their own tap water just as much.

Graph of Hypothesis

Variables

Independent Variable:

Water source

Dependent Variable:

Water popularity

Variables That Need To Be Controlled:

Age of samples, cleanliness of samples, appearance of samples, diversity of participants.

Vocabulary List That Needs Explanation

Hardness: Hard water is water with high mineral content.
pH: The acidity of water, a pH below 7 is acidic while above is alkaline.

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General Plan

Samples will be collected from five water sources in the valley. They are a dug well, a drilled well before treatment, a drilled well after treatment for hardness and radon, a community water source, and bottled water. The samples will then be sent to A & L Laboratories to have a standard water quality test. This will be for E.coli, pH, Nitrate, Nitrite, Chloride, Hardness, Copper, Manganese, Iron, and Arsenic. This will be to make sure that all are drinkable. Then a blind survey will be held to find which water the participants like the best. Finally it will be attempted to determine if there was any clear winner or loser and then perhaps to find out what was in the water that made it taste the best.

Potential Problems And Solutions

The biggist problem would be if one of the water sources tests were unsatisfactory. If this was the case then we would have to address the issue and retest the water or remove the sample completely from the experiment.

Safety Or Environmental Concerns

Only about two gallons of water will taken from each source, this will not be enough to upset any natural water balance. If one of the samples comes back from the testing unsatifactory then it will not take part in the survey.

Experimental Design

(add the correct headings from the experimental design page before beginning)

Resources and Budget Table

Materials:Ten 3.78 liter bottles of water for the survey (two from each source), 5 Test Kits, which each include two 100 ml containers (provided by A&L), 200 ml of water from each source for testing, Camera, 200 cups (3 oz.).

Data Table

Time Line

• 2/29 Design finished
• 3/6 Test Run
• 3/10 Run Water Tests
• 3/16 Conduct Survey
• 3/28 Graph Results and Compare
• 3/30 Finish Writing Up Results
• 4/5 Finish wiki

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Background Research

Clean drinking water is one of the biggest problems in today’s society. Almost 75% of the earth is covered by water but only 1% of that water is drinkable. The public’s opinion is that bottled water is cleaner and healthier than tap water but what they don’t know is that 40% of bottled water is just packaged tap water. Whats more, a bottle of water costs $1.50. Thats $12 per gallon and four times the price of gasoline. This experiment tests what water source is truly liked the most and what is in it that could be used to make others as well liked. It will prove whether or not humans can tell the difference between expensive bottled water and their own free water source. High amounts of E.coli, pH, Arsenic, Nitrate, and Nitrite, would make the water from a source very bad and maybe even dangerous and there disqualify that water source from the survey while Hardness, Copper, Manganese, Iron, and Chloride only effect taste and therefore will probably be very important in determining results.

References

Burns, Max. "5. Checking Your Water Quality." COUNTRY AND COTTAGE WATER SYSTEMS: A Complete Out-of-the-city Guide to On-site Water and Sewage Systems, Including Pumps, Plumbing, Water Purification and Alternative Toilets.. Buffalo, NY: Cottage Life Books, 2010. 70-81. Print.

Tapped. Dir. Stephanie Soechtig. Perf. Jim Wilfong. Atlas Films, 2009. Film.

Detailed Procedure

Sampling:

• Take both 100 ml containers (be sure not to touch the inside!)
• Label with date, source, and your name
• Fill out A&L Labs sheet
• Remove screens from faucet (if any)
• Run water for 2 min. (if faucet)
• Fill both containers up to the 100 ml symbol
• Put lid on tightly
• Place both containers in the envelope with the corresponding lab order for the source
• Drop off at A&L Lab in Center Conway within 24 hours of collection

Testing results:

• Make a table on Google Docs
• Add the results
• Make a graph

Survey:

• Collect two gallons of water from each source (rinsed before hand and rinsed again at source before water collection)
• Label them A (Poland Spring),B (Drilled Well before treatment),C (Drilled Well after treatment),D (Dug Well),E (Community water source)
• Gather kids
• Fill cups (make sure you know which is which by marking them with the letters)
• Let kids taste water
• Ask kids which water (Letter) they like best and which they liked least
• Tally the results
• Compare to graph
• See if any one or two factors improve or adversely effect the taste of the water

Diagram

Photo List

• Gathering samples
• Survey

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Results

All Raw Data

For the testing, the drilled well before and after treatment had the highest pH which was 7.8 pH units while the dug well had the lowest of 5.7 units. The water from the drilled well after treatment and the dug well's water were the hardest with 11.5 g/ml and Poland Spring was the softest with only 5.8 g/ml. The drilled well after treatment had the most chloride, a whopping 37 mg/L while the dug well only had 11 mg/L. The rest of the data was so small that there were no differences.For the survey, Poland Spring had the most likes and Jackson had the most dislikes. To analyze these results, a grading system was developed to decide which water was the most prefered. It counted the positive votes as +1 and the negative votes -1 and then it combined them together to create an overall score. Using this method Jackson's score was -3, the Dug Well's was +3, Poland Spring's was +2, the Drilled Well before Treatment was -2, and the Drilled Well's was 0.

Graphs

Photos

Collecting from the Drilled Well before Treatment

Collecting from the Dug Well

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Data Analysis

Conclusion

This experiment is for the most part, a survey. It tests whether humans can tell the difference between tap water and bottled water. The results for this experiment are inconclusive. This is due to that there is no clear winner. Even though some of the waters were more popular than others, they also got more least prefered. Two waters got more dislikes than likes, two got more likes than dislikes, and one was tied.

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Discussion

Even though Poland Spring had the most likes, It is still thought that the results to this experiment are inconclusive. Poland Spring also got a fair number of people who thought that it was the worst of all the waters there. This inferes that there is either no difference in the tastes of the water (which is unlikely) or that humans can’t tell the difference between the waters. The latter conclusion is what the hypothesis was based on, that the difference in the waters was so small that we can’t say which they would rather drink. This is proved by the fact that the people who took the survey took a long time to make their decisions and changed their minds often. It turns out that the hypothesis was right all along though the graph wasn't. There could have been many things to improve upon this experiment, many of which could have improved the results. In the survey it could have also asked people whether or not they were sure of their decisions and instead of asking them simply their most and least favorite, it could have been asked which was the most refreshing or sweet or salty. It also should have been marked which people chose which water so it could have compared their favorite with their least favorite.It was really enjoyed doing this experiment though. It was a blast and A&L Labs has to get credit for the opportunity to do these tests.

Benefit to Community and/or Science

I hope that the results from my experiment will benefit the community. It proves not just that most of our tap water is safe to drink but also that there is no difference in taste between them. I hope that now people realize how much they are wasting on bottled water.

Abstract

An experiment was done to test whether bottled water was really better then tap water. Five water sample were collected from around the Mount Washington Valley and then sent to A%L labs for testing. They then were used in a survey that tested 25 people. The results show that there was really no difference in the waters. This matched up with the hypothesis.